Peer Migration in China Yuyu Chen Peking University, Guanghua School of Management Ginger Zhe Jin University of Maryland & NBER Yang Yue Xiamen University October 4, 2018 Abstract With 280 million rural laborers migrating to the city in 2017, China is experiencing the largest internal migration in the human history. Using instrumental variables in the 2006 China Agricultural Census, we find that a 10-percentage-point increase in the migration rate of co- villagers raises one's migration probability by 9.18 percent points. Both information exchange at the origin and cost reduction at the destination could explain migration cluster in age, destination, and occupation. However, migration has little effect on the agricultural productivity of non- migrants, probably because labor redundancy is severe at the origin and migrants are more likely of high productivity. Keywords: internal migration, social network, China. JEL: J6, O12, R23. Contact information: Yuyu Chen, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. Email:
[email protected]. Ginger Zhe Jin, Department of Economics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Email:
[email protected]. Yang Yue, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics and School of Economics, Xiamen University. Email:
[email protected]. This project is a collaborative effort with a local government of China. We would like to thank Hongbin Cai, Wei Li, Brian Viard, Roger Betancourt, Loren Brandt, Judy Hellerstein, John Ham, Matthew Chesnes, Seth Sanders, V. Joseph Hotz, Duncan Thomas, Francisca Antman and Hillel Rapoport for helpful comments. All errors are our own. 1 1. Introduction The past 30 years has witnessed an explosive growth of labor migration inside China.